Book: Hunter's Shadow 
Author: EmmaConnolly379 
Chapters Read: Prologue and Chapter 1
Genre: Werewolf 
Blurb: 

26 year old Blake Hunter is the Alpha of the largest pack in the region and finding his mate is the last thing on his mind. Then, his father turns up on his doorstep and demands he do his duty by choosing a suitable Luna to complete and strengthen his pack before he takes matters into his own hands.

In the midst of dealing with uninvited relations, aspiring future Lunas and increasing rogue attacks on his eastern borders, a young woman stumbles out of the forest into his arms. Injured, afraid and with no idea who she is or how she got there she brings out his wolf's protective nature.

To keep her safe and unravel the mystery surrounding his new charge Blake must navigate dangers from both inside and outside his own pack even as they both struggle against their undeniable attraction. When her past returns to claim her will he risk his packs safety to keep her by his side? Or will the shadows surrounding them tear them apart for good?

Cover

Plain and simple: I don't like it.  The text for Hunter's Shadow is pretty cool, but I cannot see really anything on the cover.  I have the setting on my phone set to half the light power.  I have full power light on my desktop.  Both places it's just a dark mass with wolf eyes and the title. 

From what I can garner of the cover, it's just a faded wolf on a star background, then with the title thrown in?  I'm seeing some dark shape things that I'm not sure if are supposed to be something?  Just, all in all, I'm not getting drawn in.  I'm skipping past this overly dark cover to look at something better.  

I would recommend a brighter cover with something to make it stand out over all the other werewolf books.  Which, I know, is very hard.  But something as simple as a wolf and a night sky... I need more to make me pause.  Basically, give your cover some personality besides wolf and darkness.   

Title

I'm oddly a fan of it?  I think it's largely in part because of the double meaning (a shadow belonging to Hunter, and the shadow of a hunter).  I just hope that double meaning was intentional to kind of point to the fact werewolf are hunters and there will be werewolf things going on here.  Because, ya know, werewolves be violent.  

Don't get my hopes up for action just to rip it away please ;-; 

Blurb

*stares really hard at that 26*

*eyebrow twitches*

Okay, I know in different parts of the world, the rule is anything below ten is spelled out while stuff above that uses numbers.  But... It just does not look good.  At all. 

I am pretty sure they strongly recommend avoiding plain out numbers in narratives because of how jarring it looks among the rest of the text.  But here it's the very first thing I see of your writing?  I very strongly suggest changing it to twenty-six.

Also, something I learned: when the age is used as an adjective, it is written twenty-six-year-old.  

Okay... Now let's get off that subject... *glances at it again* <.<

*reads the rest of the blurb*

As a person who loves paranormal romance, I was admittedly offput by some of the things made popular on Wattpad, like mates being called Lunas.  Mates themselves tend to throw me off.  But that's a personal thing, and this is your werewolf story, so do as you please.  If you want my break down on why "mates" is a cheap way of doing romance, though, let me know ;) xD

Right off the bat, I'm noticing two main writing technique things: all long sentences and a lack of comma usage for adverb phrases.  This is prevalent in your writing even in your book, so I'll save it for then.  Same with some lacking commas.  

Your blurb isn't too bad.  It gives us a sense of the world, I guess.  But, like... Just from chapter one, I see so much interesting potential.  You have the entire Shadow Wars thing going on, and rogue attacks?  This all seems like intriguing stuff that adds meat to your werewolf story.  Instead... It all just gets swallowed up by the mate talk.

Now, don't get me wrong.  Paranormal romance is a thing, and I get that for this story, the romance is important.  However, it seems like what could make your story stand out as more just gets tossed to the side.  There is danger and political stakes and stuff.  In a blurb that is largely lacking in stakes, we need something.

Because no, vague rhetorical questions at the end aren't stakes.  People recommend to avoid them because they fall flat.  For the most part, we know that the couple is gonna end up together at the end if it's a stand alone, or that the main protagonist will achieve their goal, so these questions just fall flat.  How they get there and the problems they face though?  That we find interesting.

Since we know this, maybe something like "With her past catching up with her and the shadows creeping up on his pack, coming together is the only chance they have.  And even then, that may not be enough."

Stakes.  Danger.  Shipping.  Perhaps needing more than just their ship to get through this.  Accomplishing a similar feel to what you wanted without rhetorical questions that everyone feels like they already know the answer to.  Sure, they could be wrong, but just glancing at the summary, almost nobody will assume they are.

Plot/Worldbuilding

So, I can sum up the entirety of the plot I read in chapter one in a single word: mate.

What I'm guessing is 2.5k words to 3k words almost entirely about finding a mate.

I am going to be painfully honest with you: I had to force myself to finish chapter one.  I was 100% checked out by 1/4 of the chapter, maybe 1/3.  Why?  Because there was absolute no hook.

The prologue was somewhat exciting, sure.  But a chase scene prologue?  That has been seen and done more times than I care to count.  My friend used to rage to me about it because it has infected the Fantasy genre to the point it's not exciting anymore.  Just look at my last review.  Same thing.  Chase scene start.  Not saying a completely original beginning is possible, but a chase scene is one of the main "thrilling" beginnings that has just lost most of its power.  Especially vague chase scenes because there is nothing extra to it to add an oomph to it.

Then we get to chapter one and just... This is the sequence of events:

--Sister talking about mate 

-- Blake thinking about mates 

-- Horribly telly exposition of mates

-- Flashback about Father talking about mates 

-- Explaining the reason Blake is out so early that has to do with mates 

-- His wolf growling about mates 

-- His sister talking about mates again 

-- The obvious mate stumbling through the forest

Look, I know I said that mate books just aren't my cup of tea, but that isn't the reason I was so bored.  I was so bored because it was an entire, decent length chapter having only to do with mate information being shoved at us.

I'm sorry if I'm being blunt, but I prefaced this already insulting mate books, and I don't want anyone walking away thinking my issues are a personal dislike for mate stories.  My issue is that nothing happened except told exposition.

The most interesting concept from the chapter was the Shadow Wars.  Which we get nothing about.

My honest thoughts?  You need to do some hard back tracking.  Want us to care about Blake?  Gonna need to actually see him in Alpha mode.  They are apparently in war or something.  Show us a scene of the pack in low morals and Blake trying to play Alpha, then his dad snapping at him how he is doing the pack injustice by not finding a mate or something.

This chapter felt like you tried to cram 2-3 chapters of events into a single chapter of telling so you could jump to the mate showing up.  

Have your mate story, I do not care, but do not sacrifice good story telling to get to the mate stuff.  I won't say that the plot is the most original thing I've seen out there, but you could have a good iteration of it if you just breathed some life into the events.  

I will say, even if I am not a fan of this kind of werewolf iteration, you have some really cool things going for you.  So, like, is the wolf sort of like their spirit animal?  Because Rothan seems to be his own entity and can actually talk and stuff.  Seems like it could be a cool balance between the two sharing one body.  I also had a sort of idea where werewolves were created by allowing a wolf soul into their body, so yeah.  Just a kinda cool way of portraying the idea.

Though it did get kind of confusing when you would do things like "Sky's wolf did this" and I didn't know if that mean Sky's wolf had taken over the body somehow or what.

I may not like the mate trope, but I like how you've used it to instill drama into the plot and make it feel like it has more of a purpose than just being a romance aspect.  The whole blessing on them and the way the wolves have to cope with the lacking and everything?  Mates feel like a fleshed out piece of the story rather than a term just tossed in.

Overall, though, the world building... It isn't done all that well.  You just shove a lot of the info at us from the get go.  A world lectured at the readers by random info dump paragraphs isn't a world they're going to really get into or care about.  Again.  Shadow Wars is an interesting concept.  I cared way less than I should have because it was a random detail thrown my way.  

You may say this is okay because of writing "omniscient third" but... Let's get into the next part.

Writing Techniques

So... You keep telling me that you write omniscient third, but... You don't really?  

I did research into this, so if you have any counter research, please let me know, because I do eventually plan on writing a chapter about PoVs in Dreamland Guide.

The price with omniscient PoV is that you are a distant narrator.  Therefore, the moment you get into anything that could be indirect thought (their thoughts integrated into the narrative) or emotional depth from the MC character, you've broken the omniscient PoV.  Omniscient third, from my research, just barely dusts the surface of a character's internal workings, and a lot of it is through telling.  

Your narrative doesn't have much of a voice, I'll give it that, but it's because of how much telling exposition there is. But things like "If it was a hunter, it was a very unskilled one" is limited third, because that is indirect thoughts of Blake integrated into the narrative.  We are getting into his head here.

I will tell you the truth: it feels like you say you write omniscient third just as a reason to tell a lot of facts rather than show them.  

Omniscient is hard.  Limited third is hard.  Point of view is hard.  But you cannot fix that hardness by doing parts of one but taking from the other to try and make up for a con.  Because that's what is happening.  You're doing omniscient where it benefits you but taking pieces of limited third to try and erase the cons.  I think you're doing this because, whether we mean to or not, we learn a lot from what we read.

And probably 90% of third person literature in modern day?  It's limited third. So perhaps you are fusing that with what your idea of omniscient is.

If you plan on continuing with omniscient, I strongly suggest a lot of research.  It is much harder than a lot of people think because it has so many specifics that contradict with what modern literature tends to show us.

Okay.  Rant over.  Let's move on to more minor things xD

I know I harped a lot up there, and I did leave a lot of inlines, but for the most part, your writing is solid.  I could understand it -- bored from telling world building or not -- and most mistakes were basic punctuation ones.  You followed most grammar rules quite well.

I pointed out a lot of the more grammar things inline. Most of your issues stem from commas and more "decorative" punctuation. I love em-dashes and ellipses, but their usage should be very limited. A lot of the spots you used them would just be a comma spot. If you can go "a comma or a whole new sentence would work better here," you probably don't need those fancy punctuation.

Flow didn't have too many problems.  However, you do have an issue of overusing long sentences.  Long sentences are fine, but you need to have more balanced variation of sentence type.  This may have been an issue from the abundance of telling, but definitely try to cut back on the long sentences.

Especially in action scenes.  Being overused wasn't the only reason the chase fell flat.  There was no real tension created in part because of the long sentences (and in part because of the telly false-omni).  

Example: The sharp snap of a twig nearby caught her attention, out of place amidst the percussion of rain.

More tense: A twig snapped.  The percussion of rain should have drowned the sharp sound, but it didn't.  Because it had been close.  Meaning they were close.

Or something like that.  Long sentences have their usage and place, but so do short sentences.  Don't leave them hanging.

Characters

I really wasn't sure where to put this -- here or previous section -- but seriously.  What do you have against character names?  XD

We don't learn Sky's name until over half way through the first chapter.  You call her by name five times the entire chapter.  You say sister eight times, wolf two times, furball once, and perhaps more random pronouns that I cannot remember.  That alone makes 11, though.  You call her by things not her name over twice as much as you use her name.  "She" is an okay pronoun so I'm not counting it, but 11 times of refusing to use her name?

You gave Marcus a name the second time he's mentioned!  Sure, you still stuck to calling him pronouns, but we at least got his name.

Then, with the wolf, he is just "the wolf" or "Blake's wolf" until suddenly BAM! He has a name that wasn't mentioned before.

What is so wrong with names?  Blake knows what these people are names.  You gain nothing by keeping it away.  You may argue it's part of omni, but as we have established: you don't write true omni, and even if you did, the random all-knowing narrator would have known these people's names.

I'm just... I'm genuinely confused.  Why?  What is so bad about names?  Do you think we are going to forget about relations?  XD Because Sky also has to keep referring to Blake as "big brother."  I don't know if anyone naturally does that.

When we get to actual characters... Again, this "false-omni" just makes it fall flat.  Or, at least, makes Blake fall flat.  We are told so much about his character, yet he never actually gets to show who he is.  Why?

Because he is too busy talking about mates.  Sure, this kinda shows he is dedicated to focusing on the back, but, like... in a very telling way.  

Honestly, the best scene of showing character was when Marcus went to defend Sky.  Or how Sky always has to be doing things, even while talking.  Like, you have some moments that shine through as good things.

It just isn't being done enough, so it is drowned in the telling.

Give us more of that.  Give us more showing of these characters through their actions and -- in the case of the PoV character if you go with limited like I hope -- through the way their voice shapes the narrative.

I like dedicated characters who want to do what's best for those they care for, so  I like the idea of Blake's character.  I like the bones of the other characters.  I just... I need the meat of those characters.

Overall

I find reviews are really hard to balance because you feel so much like you want to expand on the stuff that was done wrong, especially in a story that has potential.  So please do not feel discouraged by how unbalanced this was.  That was in no way an insult on your part. 

Maybe I should just make an entire section dedicated to: this is what I liked that I did not mention.  Because there are things I enjoyed, I just didn't really get to talk about.  Like, I loved the quote used at the beginning of the prologue.  It fits so well and I feel encapsulates so much of what your story will be.  I like random aspects of the wolves like the mind link because mind links be crazy useful.

Hunter's Shadow has so much potential.  It seems like it could be a really fun story if you just worked on making the writing pack a punch.  Control the sentences rather than letting them get away and all be long.  Breathe life into these details that you tell us about the world.  Show just who your characters are.

I was very tempted to read on because I did want to see how you wrote when not pinned down by mateposition, but I couldn't.  This chapter just drove me away too much.  I know you say you plan on editing, and I will not argue about you re-applying once you do, because I want to see this grow.  

Next?

Next will be AriannaCrystal from the premium list.